More great news … the smoking rate in Australia is also dropping, probably because of that country very tough plain packaging laws.

The smoking rate in Australia declined from 19.4 percent about three years before the plain packaging law to 17.2 percent three years after the plain packaging law. The new law, which was battled in the courts for years by Big Tobacco, was given credit for causing at least 25 percent of that decline.

Australia was the first country to impose a plain packaging law. That law got appealed in the courts by Big Tobacco and it went all the way to the Australian Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of the government. Then Big Tobacco went to the World Court, trying to have the law overturned by arguing it was somehow violating free trade agreements with other countries. That effort likewise fizzled.

A study done in Australia suggested that one of the things that kept smokers smoking was brand loyalty. With no more brand loyalty possible with the mandatory plain packages, one encouragement for smoking was reduced.

 

From Quartz Media (a pretty interesting mobile device news site):

In 2012, Australia became the first country in the world to make tobacco companies strip their branding off products, leaving nothing but drab packaging covered with graphic health warnings. A recent study shows that this too has encouraged smokers to quit by reducing their affinity with specific brands.

The researchers, psychologists at Australian National University and the University of Queensland, suggest that as smoking has become stigmatized, tobacco companies have increasingly relied on brand identity to reach customers. “Smokers are now viewed by many as unhealthy, unattractive, and even dirty,” the researchers write, but identifying with a particular brand “deflects the negative connotations” of being seen as a smoker and “may help to define the self with more positive content (e.g. ‘Winboro Woman’ can be sassy, independent and minty fresh).”

Since Australia has imposed plain packaging rules, other countries such as the UK, France and New Zealand have followed suit. A proposal to do the same in the U.S. was stopped by the courts on First Amendment grounds.